OVERBREADTH

Lets reflect on comments by Bill Clinton today:

Pennsylvania, if you say yes to Hillary Tuesday, you hide and watch: you’re electing the next president.

No Pennsylvania, you’re not. Hillary Clinton has virtually no chance of winning the nomination. Although I suppose you could interpret the statement this way:

Pennsylvania, if you say yes to Hillary Tuesday, you hide and watch: you’re electing the next president, [John McCain.]

I’m not actually that pessimistic about the effect of a win by Clinton in Pennsylvania, although McCain has certainly benefitted from the prolonged primary. What was striking to me here was something I’d never heard a candidate advocate.

You hide and watch.

Yes, I understand his point. Somehow, magically, while you’re hiding, Hillary Clinton will win the nomination. Obama will shoot himself in the foot somehow. That, combined with a win in Pennsylvania, will mean Hillary Clinton will get nominated. She’ll then pit her experience-argument against the more-experienced John McCain, and do so with the support of a Democratic base, which is in no way alienated by having the nominee with more votes overturned by the will of the party elite. It could happen. All you gotta do is…

Hide and watch.

There’s an irony here, urging an electorate to hide and watch just days after Clinton trashed activists at closed-door fundraiser. That is the choice in this election. Do we hide and watch, or do we act.

Remember, what it felt like when W was first elected? We tried to reassure ourselves, how much harm can one president do in just four years? We figured his controversial election, one without the majority of America behind him, would quiet him into inaction. He was against nation building, after all. Remember? And as things went from bad to worse, and from worse to catastrophic, many of us were tempted to abandon politics as a source of solutions. Many of us were tempted to simply

Hide and watch.

Some people haven’t been hiding and watching over these years, activists like those at MoveOn, who continue to push for more responsible government, despite being demeaned by the Clintons, the very people whose defense against distraction politics created the organization.

I’m tired of hiding and watching.

Tags: Elections //